Monthly Archives: September 2010

Sometimes we do not need to travel far to admire the beauty of nature, of God’s creations..

Took some of these pictures from my very own garden one morning..

I soon realised that the flowers that bloom in my garden come and go just like that…and they are quickly replaced with new beautiful В flowers….sometimes I even see flowers with different colours coming out from the same plant! Just makes us wonder in awe of God’s creative fingers at work, doesn’t it? рџЂ

Seeing these new flowers bloom every one-two days also reminds me of the verse in Isaiah 40:6-7 which goes:

A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.

The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the LORD blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.

“Lord, if the grass in me is growing unwanted weeds, please trim me as You may, and help me to grow deeper rooted in Your Word; and may your mercy and grace bloom like fresh new flowers every morning in my life. Amen.”

Many people have heard of Gold Coast, but I’d bet not many people know of a Gold Coast in Malaysia!

Yeah, it is one of those hidden gems we have that is not widely publicised. Located in Bagan Lalang in Sepang, just off the PD beaches is this area called Gold Coast Sepang, that is surrounded by a few beach hotels and villas. It is not too far off from KL, about an hour’s plus drive but most parts of the journey would be through kampung roads.

The area itself is truly beautiful. Nature just seems to jump at you there. The sand, the trees, the breeze, … however, I did noticed the sea looked rather murky. Too bad this is one area that money cannot help change…well, not yet anyway. Apart from that, it is indeed a haven for photographers as it has lots of nice spots and natural lighting.

During a recent family outing there, we intended to survey the area see if it was suitable for our free family portraiture photoshoot with Two Pixels Photography next month. We also managed to check out the new resort there – Golden Palm Tree, which was really classy. Imagine, you’d need to hop on to a golf buggy to take you to you water chalet! The rates were pretty exorbitant too, the cheapest were in the region of RM 650+ per pax per night. Good thing was that everyone was allowed to go into the resort compounds to take photos without any fee. Whew!

Anyway, all in all, it was a pretty good outing. Everyone had fun, especially Collin who couldn’t stop running on the nicely cropped grass in the resort grounds. I think this would be a really great place for the photo shoot. Can’t wait for it.

If you can completely finish (both noodle and soup) of the big bowl of noodles (approx 5 standard portions) within 10 minutes, you would have stuffed your belly for free! if you fail, you’d need to pay the normal price, like RM 40..

Was seriously tempted to take the challenge the other day when we were in Sushi King, but in the end I chickened out. Haha. Perhaps I would have stood a better chance at least a decade ago..:-P

Besides, looking at the picture, it does look like the bowl of noodles filled with only some vege and half an egg cannot be worth RM40, can it?!!

Before leaving the restaurant, I casually asked if anyone had tried the challenge. The person at the counter said that so far there were seven people who have attempted, and only ONE survived the challenge…gasp.. He also pointed out it was usually the huge volume of SOUP that did it in. Most people would be able to slurp down the noodles very quickly, but the BIG BOWL of soup is the real ‘unseen’ challenge.

So, for those of you who want to take up the challenge (this year or the years to come), my tip would be to practice gulping down huge amounts of soup in one sitting first..:-D

Hahaha. I’ve always thought SUFES stood for Scripture Union for Fellowship of Evangelical Students or something…that is until I found this very old plastic bag of SUFES which is rather self-explanatory…hehe..:-D

Most of you wouldn’t know that our home TV remote has been missing for a couple of months already. Usually, it wouldn’t bother us much because knowing how ‘messy’ a house with kids can get, the remote would usually pop out sooner or later.

Strangely enough, it was still missing after a week, which then became two weeks and before we knew it, it was a month without the remote. Through it all, we sort of adjusted to life without the remote by burning a few kilojoules of fat by lifting our heavy selves off the sofa to turn the TV on and off. We had accepted the fact that it was truly GONE! I was even on teh verge of buying one of those universal remote control thingys. heh.

Anyway, recently I was bending low to pick up some loose toys that wandered off under the TV table. Suddenly I spotted what looked like a hanky in the sub-woofer boom slot. I quickly fetched the torchlight and beamed it inside the hole. Gasp! It IS a hanky and many more stuff inside it!

The screwdriver was the next thing I took as I excitedly turned the sub-woofer over and opened the screws…At last, the top came off and I discovered a trove of treasure stashed and hidden inside – ranging from lego blocks to toy drumsticks to hankerchiefs to paper buttons to rubberbands to….(drumroll)…our TV remote!!

Looks like Collin had been stealthily stuffing his toys and other things into the sub-woofer without anyone knowing! рџЂ

the subwoofer and it's 'rabbit-hole'oh what treasures are stored inside!the TV remote is found! :-D

Apparently, with this card, I could collect points and discounts when I use it at tolls along designated highways. I could also monitor my points and check out participating vendors who would also be giving out additional discounts every now and then. Cool, I thought.

I then clicked over to their PLUSmiles website to register myself/my card and start to rack up those bonus points. Unfortunately, after filling up their lengthy registration form online, an error kept popping up saying my name/ID had already been registered. Strange, cause I cannot log in at all if I’m already registered without a password?! What’s even weirder is that why am I asked to register ‘again’ after I had filled up the lenghty application form for my new card earlier? Seems to be some disconnect.

I eventually gave up and looked for the Contact Us link so that I could drop them an online enquiry to look into my problem. To my horror, I was asked to fill up ANOTHER form that asked for so many irrelevant details. Why do I need to fill up ALL such details before I could submit my simple enquiry?!

I simply gave up completely as it didn’t give me any plus smiles at all. Sigh.

Finally reached the hallowed grounds of 500 points in a recently concluded game with Spinxie. Final table above.

Was never really in a position to assault the 500-mark till the last few words left me racking my brains to make 20 points from my last 3 tiles to hit 500. So, my REEL, EEN, EWE, LED gave me 21 points and a total score of 505 pts, an FB-career best.

Sometimes I wonder if it is a case of indisciplined children or irresponsible parents?

We were recently in McDonald’s for dinner. After I had my Big Mac, I took the kids to the play-area where they have a simple and basic step-up slide with turnable tic-tac-toe panels and bubble windows. Whilst I carried Caitlynn and watched from afar, Collin went ahead and played with the other kids. There were about 8 of them at that time. Strangely enough, there was only one other parent in the room with me when the signboard clearly calls for adult supervision for children below 12. hmmm.

Anyway, chaos entered the play-area shortly in the form of two kids, a boy (around age 5) and a girl (around 4). They just played as if they entire play-are belonged to them – shoving their way through the pack of other kids, sliding down the side rails of the slide, etc. It was a disaster just waiting to happen.

Unfortunately, it happened to Collin…

Collin was slowly climbing up the steps and had just reached the middle platform when this girl ran from behind, shouted “Cepatlah!” and shoved my son from the back, causing him to fall face first onto the platform! The entire play-area suddenly became silent as Collin picked himself up and started to cry.

“WOI!!!” was my initial outburst as I stormed towards the incident. As I reached out to pick up Collin I stared at the girl and almost started spraying her with words manufactured from my raging heart. Thank God I managed to compose myself in time to remember she is still just a kid. So I managed to mutter something like please do not push when playing here. I wasn’t sure if she said ‘sorry’ or not as I quickly took Collin away to console him.

Thankfully, the bruise was not very major and he was back to his normal playful self within minutes. Not soon after that, the ‘twin terrors’ left the slide and started to play ‘kung-fu’ with the glass panel! It’s a wonder the structure didn’t crack nor did it trigger any alarm for the McDonald staff to come check. Anyway, both of them then left the play-area after that, much to the relief of the other kids, who could finally play in peace. рџЂ

Moments later, I tagged my wife into the play area as I went back to our table to finish up the food. There I noticed the ‘twin terrors’ were going down and under the chained barricade of the McD counter! After that, they sprinted back to the play-area. Timing was just nice too for me to signal my wife and kids to leave..

After this episode, I am utterly shocked at how indisciplined those kids were! However, I am even more shocked at how irresponsible the missing parents were!

What if Collin had been standing on the platform ledge when he was shoved? Or if he had fallen onto something sharp?

Isn’t it scary when parents do not supervise their kids anymore, especially the problematic ones. What’s scarier is that the violent girl bears a striking resemblance to another rude girl we saw in Marche some weeks back. The Marche girl was also shovy and rude, unsupervised and almost got into an argument with Ethan, my sister’s son. Could they be the same girl?!!

Now, if both of them are NOT the same person, it would mean there are at least two of such ‘dangerous’ kids around – making play-areas less safe..:-(

Ahhh…just needed to upload this, sit back and enjoy Argentina’s ruthless and efficient dismantling of ‘world champions’ Spain 4-1 in this morning’s ‘friendly’. A preview perhaps of how we play football differently on our own soil!

Messi was instrumental and inspring, and with all goals coming from different players, the movement was much faster and accurate, defense was almost watertight, this is a good sign indeed for interim coach Batista and Argentina’s football!